


Christmas Calligraphy

by jayreii



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Also Charlie is ridiculously too cutesy/wholesome in this that it's kinda OOC, Bc i don't normally see the point in them but this was too cute, But like he's rlyy excited so its okay, But that's just background info, Charlie is amazing im crying and so is mac, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Dyslexia, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Secret Relationship, This is my first established relationship fic (ive written a lot), also, happy holidays!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 01:49:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17132762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayreii/pseuds/jayreii
Summary: Charlie wants to make Mac the perfect Christmas card but it's pretty hard when he can't really read, write or spellaka7 days of Charlie Trying His Best (and 1 Day of The Work Paying Off)





	Christmas Calligraphy

**Author's Note:**

> credit to @miss-missgeburt on tumblr for this idea. & ty for letting me us it & such <3 it's amazing 
> 
> also if there's mistakes then it's really late/early so sorry I'll edit again if I see any later~
> 
> merry christmas yall ♡  
> charmac christmas rights!

It was December 18th, a whole week till Christmas, and Mac and Charlie have been dating (in secret) for almost 3 months now.

It was still early days, and Charlie wanted to do something big to impress Mac. At least, big for his own standard.

He planned on making his newly found boyfriend a Christmas card, that Charlie has done and written on his own. And because apparently, everyone says he can't spell, have every word spelt correctly. Charlie had some plans on how he was going to do that, kind of, although he had no idea how it was going to end up like.

Charlie made his way to the store to get whatever crafts he needed, but also to look at other Christmas cards, to see what they said.

He looked at the display and his brain got very confused. The pictures were fine, but the little amount of words surrounding them, made everything look like a big mess. No words were eligible for Charlie to be able to read.

He picked a random card to make it easier for himself and opened it. The words on the page were swirling around and there was just too many. Overwhelmed, he gave up on that idea and put the card down. Charlie thought he probably really did need help. Oh well. He was helping himself now. Kinda. His illiteracy and dyslexia had gotten better over the years. Mac had been helping him more recently.

Charlie then bought a good amount of blank cards in case he messed up, some coloured markers and went back to his apartment.

Later on he decided he would need more help if he wanted to make sure he was doing everything right. Charlie took a pen and brought it to the bar and luckily Mac wasn't there, just Dennis for whatever reason.

So, he walked up to and greeted him.

“Hey, dude.”

“Sup’?”

Charlie let the conversation last not even a minute before he mentioned what he needed to know. He tried to sneakily pull up his sleeve and take the pen out. Dennis could obviously tell. “Hey, how do you spell ‘Merry’”?

“What the hell are you doing? You know what, I don't care. What do you want?”

“Merry? How do you spell it? No reason.”

Dennis rolled his eyes. “You know what. I don't give enough of a shit to even ask. Gimme your arm, idiot.” He then continued to write MERRY in huge letters on Charlie’s arm. “I assume you want me to write Christmas too?” Dennis looked up, saw Charlie nod, then did what he was told. “Is that it?”

“I wanna do the rest myself! Thanks! Don't tell Mac.” Charlie exclaimed in the process of leaving the bar.

“I really don't care enough to.”

Charlie got home and spent a long time looking at the words on his arm and the blank paper in front of him.

He just had to copy the words, right? It was that easy, right? Apparently not.

Charlie didn't want to mess up. He wanted it to be perfect. He needed it to be perfect. Mac deserved the best and he needed to show him how much he loves him. They hadn't said the L word yet, but Charlie was planning on using it in his card. And those words especially needed to be spelt perfect.

Back to the present, and Charlie opted to using a different piece of paper, writing the same two words over and over again. Ripping the papers so each ‘Merry Christmas’ had its own strip. Charlie individually compared each strip with Dennis’ writing and eventually think he saw one that for sure, was definitely the same as the words on his arm.

He grabbed a red pen and carefully and slowly wrote ‘Merry Christmas’ in all capital letters on the front of the card. It was written in large letters but there was still a lot of space left on the front.

It was close enough to being perfect. The spelling was right, but the four ‘R’'s were backwards, as was the last ‘S’ in ‘Christmas’.

Charlie already used up enough energy completing the first part of the card, he couldn't possibly do anymore any time soon. So he left it for the day.

…

The next morning Charlie woke up and after a short while, grabbed the card which he had under the side of his bed. He stared at the card for a while, trying to read it back and wondering what to do with it.  

Charlie debated not going into work to stay home and work on the card, but he hadn't seen Mac in a couple of days. There was also a chance he would see Mac at work and they would do stuff in secret like they sometimes do.

He goes into work and a few hours later himself and Mac find themselves alone in the back office. Somehow Mac is sat on the chair with Charlie on his lap.

They're attached to each other. At least, Charlie has wrapped himself around Mac, showing as much affection possible. They make out for a good few minutes, before they are interrupted by a knock on the door. Charlie immediately gets up off Mac and both of them are awkwardly stood next to each other as the door opens.

Dennis came in to blast them both about not doing any work. “What the hell were you guys doing in here?” He was slightly confused.

“Uh…” Both of them muttered at the same time.

“You know what, I don't wanna know. Just get back to work.”

When Charlie got home, he decided not to do anymore work on the card. Directly, at least. As he did try to use the empty space on his arm to attempt to write 'Mac' and 'I love you'. Just for practice. He could write his boyfriend's name all over himself without issue. Although then all Charlie was able to write was ‘I ♡ U’ and he figured out he had no idea what the actual spelling was. He had the faintest memory of being taught by Mac how to spell ‘you’ at least, but he couldn't remember anything. That was a problem for another day, Charlie thought.

….

Charlie woke up the next day and initially decided to not go into work, as he was going to spend it decorating the front of the card.

He spent a ridiculous amount of time drawing a oddly shaped purple snowflake on the front. It didn't even look like what a kid's drawing of a snowflake would be, it was basically just a bunch of lines everywhere. But you could tell what it was supposed to be, and Charlie was proud of it.

As he was almost finished with the drawing, he heard a knock at his door, followed by a, “It's Mac.” He hurriedly hid the card and markers, then realised the writing on his arm was showing. Charlie pulled a blanket over himself and he let Mac know the door was open.

Mac let himself in and made his way over to Charlie. “Dude, you better be planning on coming into work today. The rest of the gang keep on complaining that there's so much Charlie work to do and you're not there to do it. Obviously they're not gonna do it. And no offence, babe, but I ain't either.”

Charlie sighed. “Ugh. Fine.”

“Thanks, babe. Sorry. They're just so annoying.”

“Can you just, go back and tell them I'll be there later on?”

“Why? What are you doing now?”

“Nothing. I just. Please, babe?” Charlie gave his boyfriend a puppy dog look. Also, he didn't use ‘babe’ often, unlike Mac, but he knew that his boyfriend adored it when he did. Charlie could get anything he wanted when he combined that adorable look and pet name.

“Fine. I'll drop it.”

Charlie smiled. “Thanks, dude. Later.”

“Excuse me? Don't I get a kiss?” Mac complained, not leaving without one and offended Charlie forgot.

They both leaned forward and gave each other a peck on the kiss. “Gimme a min. I'll be there, promise.”

“Okay, dude.”

Mac left and Charlie put on his jacket to cover up the marker on his arm. But before he left he waited for a few minutes so he could finish drawing the oddly coloured snowflake. Love hearts were then added in different colours under the drawing and all around the front.

…

The following day, Charlie didn't come into work at all. He stayed indoors all day trying his best to work out how to spell ‘I love you’ without help. He tried to write it multiple times on scrap paper but figured out he had no way of knowing.

Charlie realised that he could use his phone for help. As he does have a smartphone now and he could speak the words into Google and they'd come up. He decides to do just that but the words are too small and surrounded by other words, so he zoomed into the top bar where ‘I love you’ appeared.  

He then proceeded to do the same copying process from a few days ago with a new phrase instead. Attempting to correctly copy the words from his phone onto scrap paper, over and over again until he sees something that looks the same. He was at least pretty sure they're the same and he put that scrap of paper to one side.

At the end of all that, Charlie ends up being too scared to write anything else that day in case it's wrong. So, he only draws a cat with blue marker on the inside left of the card.

…

The next day, Mac was at Charlie’s before he had a chance to do anything. Due to the fact that Charlie had spent a lot of time in his room lately, Mac suggested they spend the whole day and night together.

And Charlie can't say no to _that_ , so he gets nothing done with his card that day.

…

Charlie came home the following next day, and continued his writing practise, on his arm and paper. His skills were improving and he he was getting better at this task. Although, he ends up just writing ‘MAC’ at the top right inside the card, and underlying it a bunch of times. That was easy, he knew how to spell his name.

He then wrote another ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS’ underneath that as he felt that was something he could do without stressing too much. Charlie thought that was good enough for one day and put everything away.

…

Now it was Christmas Eve and Charlie found time in his day to finish the card.

He finally learnt via the internet and his own observation how to correctly spell the display of affection. And now he had eventually figured out how to perfectly, at least to Charlie, write it out.

He finally wrote ‘I LOVE YOU’ underneath the last thing he wrote with red pen. The ‘E’ is the wrong way around, but nothing else is incorrect.

Charlie signs his name at the bottom of the card with a blue marker, not messing anything up this time.

Finishing his work, he left more love hearts all over the card, in different colours, next to his name, Mac’s name, around the cat, etc.

He's finally finished. Charlie looked at his masterpiece and is so proud of himself. Smiling, he put everything away and hid the card at the side of his bed again.

…

Charlie woke up super early on Christmas Day and went to Mac’s apartment with the card behind his back at 6am.

Mac gets annoyingly woken up way too early by aggressive, persistent knocks that don't seem to stop. He opened the door, rubbing his eyes and saw Charlie.

He had his hands behind his back but he's still enthusiastic. God knows how at this time, Mac thought. “Mac! Mac! Merry Christmas!” Charlie beamed.

“Oh.” Mac totally forgot about that for a minute. “Shit, yeah. Merry Christmas, Charlie.”

“I got you something.” He smiled, indicating behind his back with his head.

“Gimme a sec to wake up, babe. I don't know how you're so awake. Come over here.” Mac walked over to sit on his couch and Charlie joined.

Mac rubbed his eyes for a short while. “Okay, I'm awake now. Shoot.”

Grinning, Charlie took the card from behind his back and showed the front of it to Mac like a small child showing kindergarten artwork to their parents. “I made you this.”

“A Christmas card?” He took it from Charlie to observe, then looked back up at him to ask. “You made this? All by yourself?”

“Yeah!” He smiled. “Well I had help. Kinda. Dennis told me how to spell those words” Charlie pointed at the front of the card. “He wrote it on my arm. But it took me ages to learn. The rest the internet helped with.”

“This is amazing, Charlie. I love it.”

“Thanks, babe! Did I spell it right?” He was very keen to know if he actually spelt everything right. For once.

“Yeah, you did. Holy shit, man. Good job.”

“Open it up!”

Mac did as told and was completely taken back by doing so and reading the contents.

He didn't care that it was messy and not all of the words were the way right round. He didn't question why there was a blue cat in a Christmas card. Charlie, his adorable boyfriend, had made him an amazing gift and spelt every single word correct. He probably had never done that before in his entire life. On top of all that, he had told him he loved him within it. That was another thing he'd never done before.

“ _Babe_. Oh my god.” He was on the verge of tears at this point. “How long did this take you?”

“About a week.” Charlie casually replied.

“A whole week? Aw, babe.”  

“Yeah. Do you like it? I wanted it to be perfect for you. ‘Cos, yeah, I _do_ love you and everything. But it probably isn't perfect, sorry.”

That was it. Mac couldn't hold the waterworks in any longer. He tried to hide the tears with his hands, wiping them, but it couldn't be concealed. “This _is_ perfect, Charlie. You spelt everything right. I didn't even know you were at that stage yet. I'm so proud of you, dude.”

“Are you crying?” 

“No.” Mac lied, hiding his tears. “It's just allergies.”

“It's winter, idiot. What are you allergic to, your own bullshit?” Charlie lightheartly teased.

Mac softly laughed and the tears stopped coming out. He cleaned his eyes a little more before grabbing his boyfriend in for a hug. “I love you too, Charlie. So much. I'm so fucking proud of you, man.”  

“Thanks.” Charlie muffled, barely getting it out, in the middle of big muscles squeezing him. “You're crushing me, though.”

Mac let go. “Sorry.”

“You really like it, though?”

“‘Course, babe. I'll fucking cherish it forever.”

Charlie smiled. “Good.”

“Oh, yeah. I've got your gift here, I think.” Mac turned to look at the bottom of the couch.

“Shit! Man, I totally forgot to get you an actual present. Sorry, babe.”

Mac faced Charlie. “That's really okay, dude. _That_ was enough.”

  



End file.
